A need exists for a lightweight, portable tool that prevents harm to humans in a facility which has electrical equipment that needs replacing and is susceptible to arcing during testing, maintenance or switching out of equipment on a piece by piece basis.
A need exists for a tool that can be lifted by one hand of a human and used for performing maintenance or switching out of equipment such as in a circuit breaker room on a piece by piece basis without shutting down power to the entire facility. This is particularly important for hospitals, but also has an impact on other facilities, such as hotels.
It is common for a large facility, such as a hospital or a hotel, to have to shut down all power in the facility for 1 and ½ hours to replace circuit breakers and do other manual electrical maintenance in a switching room. This means a hotel has to shut off power, typically at 3:00 am to 4:30 am at least once a year to replace used or worn equipment. A hotel often has pilots staying with them, and these customers, that need to be up at 4:00 am, will then not stay at the hotel that night, causing a loss of revenue.
More importantly, a hospital that needs to perform the same shut down, due to arcing that occurs when the system is fully powered, has many more difficulties and must provide back up power to its emergency room, and to its life support facilities and the intensive care units, where patients are on breathing machines. The time and scheduling, and costs involved are immense, and if something goes wrong, it can mean loss of a patient's life.
If no shut down is performed, the switching room can generate “arcs” of electricity that provide first and second degree burns to a human manually swapping out the equipment.
A need has long existed for a tool that can be operated by a person without needing to shut down a facility to swap out circuit breakers or similar “electric arc” producing equipment.
The present embodiments meet these needs.